Fewer than 500 Amur tigers are presently living in Russia, conservationists say

Aug 13, 2013 18:16 GMT  ·  By

Russia's Amur tiger population has been steadily decreasing over the past few years.

Poaching, the destruction of their natural habitat and the decimation of their prey base are to blame for the fact that said country is now home to fewer than 500 such big cats.

Specialists writing in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology, have recently argued that this endangered species has one other thing to worry about: a pathogen known as the canine distemper virus (CDV, for short).

This pathogen typically affects domestic dogs. However, it can also be contracted by Amur tigers, EurekAlert reports.

Big cats infected with this virus experience a decline in their neurological functions. Sooner or later, the disease kills them, specialists argue.

Since 2009 until present days, 1% of Russia's Amur tiger population was lost to the canine distemper virus.

This might not seem like a very big deal but, given the fact that said tigers are already an endangered species, conservations maintain the situation is worrying to say the least.

Scientists are now trying to identify the virus strains killing tigers in Russia. They hope the information collected in this manner will help them figure out a way to safeguard these big cats.